Welcome to the Metrozone

Stay at the desk

You look at the list, and decide that if this isn’t an emergency, you don’t know what is. You pick up the handset, punch 999 and listen breathlessly. There’s nothing. You stare at the phone, and realise it’s on an extension. You need to dial for an outside line, and you don’t know how to do that. It’ll probably tell you in the folder, somewhere, but you don’t have time to look. You’ve got your own phone on you anyway.

The lights flicker, then cut out. It’s abruptly dark. You reach for the torch, and flick it on. There’s a sound like a gunshot that makes you flinch, and the roaring sound of rapidly approaching water. The wave hits the front of the desk. You might have expected the curved front of it to take the brunt of the impact, and protect you from the worst, but this only partially happens.

The desk itself shoots backwards. It’s not anchored to the floor in any sort of way, and it strikes you right in the stomach. You flail uselessly at the counter, winded, in pain, but it’s still moving, and it’s taking you with it. The torch is torn from your grip, and you slam into something sharp and heavy behind you.

Your head goes underwater. Now dazed and disorientated, you try to find the floor – it’s not like you’re out of your depth – but other things are falling on you from above, pinning you down. There’s nothing you can do in this dark chaos. You’re not even sure which way is up, and your struggles grow slowly weaker until they cease altogether.